Michelle Egan

Setting Standards: Strategic Advantages in International Trade

Among the most important technical barriers to trade are the different standards, testing and certification measures for products and services. Efforts to co-ordinate these within Europe - including the EUs increasing reliance on private sector standards bodies - are now underway. The EUs single market has not only integrated national markets, but has also shaped trading principles at the international level. The EU has exported its trade principles to third country markets and European companies have gained strategic advantages in influencing standards both internally within Europe and externally at the international and transatlantic level. Firms should invest resources and actively participate in setting standards to protect and increase their competitive advantage.

Environmental management standards, corporate strategies and policy networks

The establishment of environmental management systems is part of the shift away from command and control policies to more flexible policy instruments, giving firms more scope to decide for themselves what the best practicable options are. As a result of this ‘shared responsibility’ between public and private actors in environmental issues, the development of environmental management systems is a good example of a policy network with a core group of actors involved in shaping the environmental agenda. This article investigates the role of policy networks in developing the British environmental management standard (BS 7750) and the European Union eco‐management audit (EMAS). The policy network approach is useful in isolating the role of a diverse range of actors and their impact on the EU policy process. The history of environmental management standards suggests that key actors in the negotiations process are found at different levels of the EU process, ranging from the national to the global. This indicate...

Modes of business governance: European management styles and corporate cultures

This article examines the role of corporate culture. It highlights the impact that cultural norms and institutional values may play in shaping managerial decision making in German, French, Swedish and British companies. It is argued that corporate culture is crucial to the ability of such organisations to respond to a more integrated, competitive European economy. Rather than assume, as many economics studies have, that businesses are simply ‘black boxes’ which respond to external markets and regulatory forces, this article focuses on the ‘behavioural side’ of business, which has been little touched upon in previous studies of European integration.

The Single Market: Trade Barriers and Trade Remedies

In this article we investigate how well the single market functions in practice by examining barriers to trade in goods markets and we discuss efforts to improve the governance of the single market. We use two unique datasets of specific trade obstacles to empirically examine which barriers continue to undermine EU cross-border trade, and whether non-judicial remedies have provided some degree of effective informal market governance in tackling trade impediments. Based on four hypotheses on country, industry and policy variables we test the probability of removing trade barriers in the pre-litigation phase of infringement proceedings rather than by Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decisions. We then assess the usage and effectiveness of the informal mechanism Solvit to resolve trade obstacles in the single market. We conclude that informal mechanisms operate in the ‘shadow of hierarchy’ as judicialization remains the last resort option when informal co-operation does not achieve the desired goals.

The Historical Evolution of the Transatlantic Partnership

Cowles and Egan provide a concise historiography of transatlantic relations since 1945. Examining how the United States and Europe have weathered global structural shifts, external threats and divergent domestic dynamics in the past, they argue there has never been a ‘golden age’ in the transatlantic relationship. The United States and Europe have a history of drifting apart and transforming their partnership to address global challenges. Today, the transatlantic partners are working within the changing international order in a manner that reflects their long-standing, deeply rooted alliance.

Barriers to Business in the Single Market

This paper assesses the barriers to business that forms face in the European Single Market. It highlights the hard and soft law mechanisms used to tackle the trade barriers impacting intra-European trade. The analysis reveals the unfinished efforts to complete the single market.